People Are Strange
by V. Laike
Summary: Crazy Old Mr. Singer lived in a big, spooky house in the middle of his big spooky junkyard. We were sure the place was haunted. . . . Not quite a missing scene for 'Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.'


Not quite a missing scene from "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid."

Disclaimer: Everyone knows the characters you recognize are not mine, right?

PEOPLE ARE STRANGE

by

V. Laike

* * *

Crazy Old Mr. Singer.

That's what we used to call him when I was a kid. Crazy Old Mr. Singer, who lived in that big, spooky house in the middle of his big, spooky junkyard. He'd just as soon shoot you as look at you if he caught you on his property. We were sure the place was haunted. Especially at night. Big, hulking piles of old cars and scrap metal and rusty auto parts that could hide anything. Mountains of ancient carcasses that made deep, eerie shadows that moved on their own. (I swear. I saw it.) None of us were brave enough, or stupid enough, to go there at night. Not by ourselves. So of course our favorite thing to do was go as a group and dare each other to climb the fence. "I dare you!" "I double dare you!" "I double dog dare you!" And eventually we'd all climb the fence--far enough away that his dog wouldn't catch us, then later we started bringing snacks for the dog, just in case-- and find a good, tall pile of cars to climb up on and watch the lights flicker on and off in the windows of the house. And we'd wonder what Crazy Old Man Singer was doing in there.

Dan used to say that Mr. Singer was messing with black magic and conjuring the spirits of the people who'd died in car wrecks. There were a lot of wrecked cars in the yard, Kyle would add, so there would be plenty of ghosts to conjure. Gail used to say that he was skinning cats and making pies out of them. Sharon used to say that he had his wife's body sitting at the dining room table, and he'd eat dinner with her before tucking her into her coffin for bed.

My mom told me, back when I was a kid, that Mr. Singer wasn't always like that—-weird, I mean. When Mom and Dad moved to town, she said, Mr. and Mrs. Singer were the nicest people you'd ever want to meet. Mr. Singer always gave Dad a deal on car parts, and Mrs. Singer was always baking pies for charity bake sales. Mom says she made the best pies in the county. They always won blue ribbons at the county fair. (I guess that's where Gail came up with her pie theory.)

Then one day Mrs. Singer disappeared. Some people say she ran off with another man, but Mom never believed that. Some people say she went to visit a sick relative and never came back. Some people say she went crazy and killed herself. Some people say she went crazy and Mr. Singer killed her. A few people even say _he_ went crazy and killed her, but really, only the loons think that.

Mom says that after Mrs. Singer disappeared, Mr. Singer about went nuts with grief. He still ran his business, and he was polite enough to his customers, she says, but he'd disappear himself for days and weeks at a time. He became less social, didn't sponsor the little league team anymore. Dad said all sorts of disreputable looking types started calling on him. By the time I was in school, he'd become known as Crazy Old Mr. Singer. Mom and Dad never talked bad about him, but they didn't want me going there without an adult, either. What they didn't know wouldn't hurt them, right?

When I was in middle school, I guess it was, there were a couple of boys who came to visit Mr. Singer. I guess they always came during the summer, because I never saw them in school. At least, I don't remember seeing them in school. Dad said they were Mr. Singer's nephews or something. The younger of the two boys was really smart, and his brother was really cute. I think the little brother's name was Sam. Dean was about my age. None of my friends were allowed to play with them. I wasn't supposed to, either. Dean was my first kiss. I was thirteen. What my mom and dad don't know won't hurt them, right?

When I got to high school, I realized that a lot of the stuff we thought about Mr. Singer as kids simply wasn't true. Well, the part about him being mean and shooting kids for target practice wasn't. And he didn't bake cats into pies. (My mom told me that my favorite apple pie recipe actually came from Mrs. Singer.) And his wife was buried in the cemetery. He gave me a real good deal on the replacement parts for my first car when the salesman sold me a lemon, and he sent me to a really good mechanic.

My friends and I never quite gave up the idea that he was working something twitchy with the supernatural, though. That thought alone kinda gave me the creeps.

I moved back to town after college, and things hadn't changed much. Melissa told me that Old Man Singer was as weird as ever, but I didn't think much of it. He kept to himself (though his name showed up more than once in the newspaper's police blotter, usually for things like mail fraud), and I didn't usually have reason to go that way out of town.

Then about two years ago, give or take, something must have happened, because rumors started around that Mr. Singer had started drinking. Like, a lot. Melissa's friend Monica, whose boyfriend works at the liquor store, said that Mr. Singer had become a regular customer. He'd stock up on a lot of the hard stuff, and two days later he'd be back, buying just as much as he had two days before. I don't know what happened, but it must have been bad. His name only showed up in the police blotter for DUI once, though. After the near-miss, I guess he stopped driving. Or, at least, he stopped driving after he'd been drinking. Still, nobody saw much of him.

About a year and a half ago, Monica's boyfriend told her that he hadn't seen Mr. Singer in the liquor store anymore. At all. He thinks Mr. Singer probably started distilling his own whiskey somewhere on the property. It'd be easy enough to hide a still in among all that junk. He says that's why Mr. Singer ended up in a wheelchair about six months ago. He says the homemade hootch finally did something to his brain or nerves or something and paralyzed him. I guess if it can make you go blind, it can screw you up in other ways, too.

So that's pretty much how things are with Crazy Old Mr. Singer. He's the town drunk. Sheriff Mills calls him a menace. And a lot of my friends still talk about the ghosts in his scrap yard.

Seriously, though. Who believes that stuff? Mr. Singer is just a nice guy who went a little crazy from loneliness. Not really dangerous, but not someone you want to stop and chat with, either. Not that he'd want to chat with you.

And his wife had some really good pie recipes. My mom made me one last night for dessert.

The thing is, Mom died three years ago.

I wonder if Mr. Singer would know anything about that.


End file.
